Using Trigonometry to aid the blind people in navigation

Innovation by: Nilay Roy Choudhury, Publish Date : January 3, 2019

I have always wanted to use my skills and passion to help people and when I saw this project which consisted of an ultrasonic sensor attached to a walking stick, I was motivated to build something better as the device had obvious limitations. It could only detect objects at a particular height and thus was not very dynamic.

This is where my project and my hypothesis dives in. Could we develop a device which could observe and detect objects at all levels(heights) in front of the person simultaneously?

I decided to build a device which has 3 different distance sensors placed at an angle of 45 degree to each other. The raw input from these sensors is then processed using trigonometry to obtain much more refined and usable data.

Supposed to be worn on the chest, the device has two different methods of notifying or warning the user of obstructions: a buzzer(speaker) and a vibration motor, both operating at varying frequencies to denote the closeness of the obstruction, are present.

This device is capable of detecting objects at any level in front of the user and it can be instrumental in aiding the blind people to navigate. Since I haven\\\'t been able to see this device being used by an actual blind person, my next goal is to use this device to actually help blind people and collect their feedback to further improve it.